Popular blog repeats bogus information without fact checking.
Yesterday DomainGang, a sometimes satire/sometimes not domain web site, wrote a piece titled “BullWhip to Fight PETA over ownership of Sex.com!”
It was based on real “news”, that PETA sent out a press release asking Sex.com’s creditors to give it the domain name so it could help get its message out. Of course PETA was joking and doing it for the publicity.
But the story also mentioned a meat company “Bullwhip”, and said that Bullwhip sent out a press release saying it should get the Sex.com domain name. This latter part was completely made up. There is not Bullwhip, no Executive Vice President Dick James, and no press release.
That didn’t stop another media outlet (if you can call it that) from picking up and running with it. Take a guess? Yes, Mashable.
Mashable wrote an article citing DomainGang and didn’t do any fact checking. Sure, it’s a funny article. But did the author think to do a quick search for “bullwhip co” or its executive vice president? Or perhaps tried to find the actual press release that DomainGang was referring to? It wouldn’t have found anything.
I’ve gotten on Mashable’s case before for being inaccurate, but at least that time it was a complicated issue.
The real problem is that Mashable has turned into a content mill, churning out as much crap content as it can to take advantage of its army of retweeters and Diggers. Fact checking is out the window. It’s a volume game.
And as Mashable goes, so go the others. Just do a Google search for “Bullwhip to Fight PETA over ownership of Sex.com”.
Because Mashable is popular, people trust it. So what was fake news is now real news in the eyes of thousands.
Should Theo and DomainGang also take some responsibility for this? Satire is difficult to pull off. It’s not like the DomainGang is The Onion. The domain name community has gotten on Theo’s case in the past, such as when one of his writers suggested that Adam Dicker was shutting down DNForum. I’m not going to blame DomainGang for this one, although I do think the site should carry a prominent disclaimer that it is satire.
[Update: Theo has posted his version of yesterday’s events.]
[Update 2: Mashable has corrected it story and added “This story has been updated for accuracy — our original article contained references to “BullWhip,†a fictitious company mentioned in a parody article. We apologize for the error.”]
Acro says
Andrew, I think that you take things too seriously and honestly, when people don’t read what is right in front of them – disclaimers top and bottom at DomainGang.com – then it’s nobody’s fault but the person’s who compiles a piece of news without much research. I furthermore challenge you to find a single disclaimer of any kind on The Onion. Again, please READ instead of skim and keep an open mind to satire, parody and alternate journalism. TGIF!
Andrew Allemann says
Acro – the trick with Satire is that no one should actually believe the story when they ready it. I can’t find a single Onion story that someone would actually believe.
That said, I’m not blaming you…I’m blaming Mashable.
Acro says
If that were the case, Andrew, then people would not go to the movies or the theater, to identify with the performers. I understand that your focus is different than that of DomainGang.com and that’s precisely what makes DG unique: a satire web site that discusses domain-related news, presenting reality under a different light. We make people think; those that do not want to think, fall victims to their own lack of neurons 🙂 If you’d rather see this as the result of modern society’s methods – in the past, only newspapers, the radio and television existed as “live” media of delivering news – then it becomes apparent that the Internet in the eyes of many, exists solely as a form of entertainment. With regards to accuracy, you’d be surprised how much inaccurate information exists, even on Wikipedia. Authority on the Internet is an oxymoron.
Mark Fulton says
That is hilarious that Mashable picked it up. Congrats to DomainGang on your traffic spike.
I agree that Mashable is churning out some poor articles that are created as “social bait.” It’s sad and I am starting to become hesitant to share even their quality articles because of it.
DomainersChoice.com says
Like Theo said, there is actually a disclaimer on the website. It is more than good enough for me, I don’t see the requirement for one in the first place.